Dry Your Tears
by xTeam Mockingjayx
Summary: Aftermath of Killian's death in the mid-season finale. Based on the 'Dry Your Tears' prompt for the CS One Shot Week on twitter.


**Dry Your Tears**

 _AN: My oneshot for #CSOneShotWeek on twitter. Based off the prompt 'Dry Your Tears'. Set straight after Killian's death in the mid-season finale. I hope you like it_

* * *

His hand had felt so cold.

Killian, her Killian is…was always so warm.

Memories of the incident with Elsa flashed before her eyes.

For hours she remained shivering, feeling nothing but the cold that she'd experienced trapped in that ice enclosed death-trap.

But Killian held her close, intertwining his large, warm hands with her soft, trembling, blue ones and she felt safe.

When she clung to him as he laid motionless on that stretcher only a few hours ago, he was ice cold and she knew nothing she could do would bring the heat back to his skin or the light back into to his eyes.

Emma's parents had brought her to the loft once she could finally find it in her to walk.

The fire crackled opposite her but Emma felt no heat. She could only stare into the scarlet and orange flames hoping against all hope that the last few hours, weeks, months had been a dream.

In an ideal world she would snap out of this horrific daydream and Killian would be right beside her, holding her close, keeping her warm and protecting her to the best of his ability as he always did.

But this wasn't an ideal world.

This was the painful reality.

A reality in which Killian Jones did not exist in anymore.

Emma felt her heart physically ache at that terrifying fact.

Her pale, long fingers clutched onto the ring that hung around her neck.

Emma held onto his ring as tightly as she had clung onto his arm while he was being taken away by people whose faces she couldn't see through her tears.

Killian gave her this ring to protect her, told her how it protected him and saved his life many a battle so he gave it to her to protect her and in doing so this precious keepsake saved her and protected her but she failed to protect him.

And now he's gone...

* * *

Emma could hear her parents whispering about her in the kitchen.

She tried to find the will inside her to eavesdrop, to hear what worries they had about her so she could snap at them, tell them she was fine and they didn't need to worry about her.

But for the first time in a long time Emma Swan accepted that she was not fine.

All her parents, Henry and even Killian wanted was for the darkness to leave her soul and for her to be Emma Swan, the saviour again. That's even what she wanted.

Now she sat on her parent's couch, guarded in her red leather jacket that felt as comfortable and familiar as the day she'd last worn it and yet she felt ten times worse than when she was guarded in black, crocodile leather with nobody but a Dark One demon for company.

* * *

Her mind was on overdrive.

For the first three hours all her mind did was replay those moments on a loop.

How his voice shook with nerves as he ordered her to kill him.

The way his face twisted in pain when she delivered the final blow.

His cry of sheer pain that broke her fragile heart in two, the feel of his familiar hand cupping her cheek as he stared into her watering eyes as she lost all her darkness.

She felt so many emotions, too many and Emma was struggling to cope with them.

Hurt, anger, loss, guilt, pain but with all those feelings whirling around inside of her for some unknown reason she had never felt so thoroughly empty.

* * *

Out of nowhere Emma felt a hand on her cheek.

Immediately flinching at the unexpected feeling, Emma turned and stared into the shocked, hurt, sorrowful eyes of her mother.

Emma tried to form an apology, explain that she just hadn't noticed her mother's sudden presence, that the feeling of her fingers brushing against her cheek had shocked her.

But her mother's sad smile reassured her that she didn't need to say anything.

They sat there for a while. Emma's once sparkling, fiery, bright green eyes now dull and empty, focus on the sparks that emit erratically from the fire as she can feel her mother's gaze constantly on her.

When Emma eventually speaks her voice is dry and she has to swallow before trying again,

"Where-where's Henry?"

Mary Margaret hesitantly lays a hand on the saviour's knee,

"He's staying with Regina and Robin tonight, we thought it would be for the best."

Emma nods and desperately hopes her son is alright.

Henry didn't instantly bond with the pirate but ever since Killian came to New York to restore their memories Henry and him had gotten closer.

A friendship that only grew stronger when she and Hook became a couple.

Emma knew how much her son cared for her boyfriend, was aware that he supported their relationship and trusted Killian a lot.

After losing his father Emma knew losing Killian would hurt an incredible amount as Killian was one of the only father figures in his life Henry knew he could depend on other than Robin and perhaps David.

Henry wouldn't be feeling the one emotion she felt most strongly though.

Guilt.

Because this was most certainly all her fault.

And that pained her just as if someone had ran her through with a sword.

Emma had tried tirelessly to keep Killian's darkness a secret from him ever since they arrived back in Storybrooke. If only she had been honest with him, Killian may still be alive.

Countless different scenarios play in her mind of all the things she could have done differently.

All the ways she could have saved him.

But she did none of them and in turn could not save him.

She had told him everything she had done was to try and keep their future alive.

Which was true.

But she had failed.

Instead she drove that sword through his chest, forced all the darkness of all the Dark Ones inside of him and she killed him.

Unconsciously salty tears fell from her shining green eyes and dropped onto the fabric of her jeans.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Emma registered her mother putting an arm around her leather-covered shaking shoulders, stroking her recently restored sunshine blonde hair and whispering soothing words in her ear.

But all Emma could hear was Killian's voice.

* * *

Emma read somewhere, a long time ago that the first thing you forget about a lost loved one was their voice.

Shutting her eyes Emma focused all her energy on remembering his.

The strong, alluring accent that was notorious for making women's knees weak, the low, dangerous tint his voice took when facing an opponent or when someone questioned him, hurt or threatened a person he cared about.

She felt her freezing cold fists clench as she tried to remember his teasing voice when he wanted to make some smart come back at her, the gentle voice he used to comfort anyone who needed it, and he used that same soft, calming voice when Emma let her walls down with him or when he would talk to Henry.

The voice of disdain and hatred he saved only for the crocodile.

The voice he would use with that encouraging smile when he wanted to inspire her, help her believe in herself again and oh was he so good at that.

Helping her to have faith in not just magic and fairy-tales but in herself.

* * *

"It's my fault…"

The softly spoken words of despair escaped Emma's dry, chapped pink lips as unwillingly as the clear tears left her eyes.

Finally meeting her mother's eyes Emma saw that there were tears in the other woman's eyes too and she felt her mother rub her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her lost, grieving daughter.

"No…no sweetheart…it's not your fault."

"He…he can't…" her voice sounded hoarse, tired and broken even to her ears.

He can't be dead.

That's what she wants to say.

Her strong, indestructible pirate couldn't be dead.

This must be a mistake, a trick by Nimue, by the Rumpelstilskin, the author, Maleficent, anyone.

Killian was a survivor.

How many times had he told her that?

Too many times to count but enough for her to actually start believing it.

Killian wouldn't leave her.

Not her 'love-sick puppy dog' as the darkness inside him had described.

He wouldn't leave her alone.

He must know…has to know that she isn't strong enough to cope without him…that she couldn't lose him.

Not him, not after everything they've been through.

* * *

But here they were.

Him, lying on some slab in the hospital unmoving…frozen in some cold, cold morgue half-way across town.

Her, sitting in front of a fire, in a heated, toasty, familiar loft but still freezing cold, stuck in a circle of denial, guilt and tears.

Her mother, tears falling from her own eyes now as she watched her daughter fall apart piece by piece, knowing there was nothing she could do to glue the pieces back together.

Her father, sitting at the kitchen table silently watching them, he held the same look in his eyes as he did the day Killian collapsed on the floor of Granny's in Camelot. The look of utter helplessness and loss of hope.

Emma never thought she'd see that look in her father's eyes.

But then again she'd never thought she'd be in this situation.

She hoped and prayed this wouldn't happen to her again.

That she wouldn't lose one of the best things that ever happened to her.

That after keeping him at arm's length for so long, when she finally let him in she could believe what he said, that he would always be there for her and never leave her.

Believe him when he told her she didn't have to worry about him.

Falling into her mother's side, allowing more tears to fall until she felt like she could never stop sobbing Emma accepted the truth.

Killian was gone.

He wasn't coming back.

Not this time.

And so Emma allowed her walls to come crashing down and let herself be vulnerable in this moment as she clung to her mother for dear life while sobbing incoherent cries of lost love into her jumper.

* * *

It was hours later when the sun was beginning to rise before Emma insisted on returning to her home, their home.

Mary Margaret reluctantly brought her home and tucked her in on the couch, begging her daughter to try and get some rest.

As her mother brushed her fingers against her cheek once more, Emma realised her mother was trying to dry her tears.

To wipe away the salty liquid as if that would wipe away the problem.

Her mother's fingers were so warm and gentle.

The last thought Emma had before giving into her exhaustion was that even under all these blankets she still felt so unbelievably cold but it was nowhere near as cold as Killian Jones had felt under her touch as he was slowly taken from her by the darkness.

* * *

 _AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Please favourite and review letting me know what you think!_

 _\- xTeam Mockingjayx_


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